The image4j library allows you to read and write certain image formats in 100% pure Java.
Currently the following formats are supported:
This project aims to provide:
The image4j library is licensed under the GNU LGPL v2.1 so you are free to use it in your Free Software and Open Source projects, as well as commercial projects, under the terms of the LGPL v2.1.
This project began after I spent hours searching for a library that would meet the above criteria and found that there is probably no such thing - or at least, not any more. The only support I could find for the ICO format was read-only, so doing cool stuff - like generating favicons on the fly - using only Java code was not possible.
It is possible to decode/encode BMP and ICO files with just one line of code!
The image4j library consists of only Java code and has no dependencies on third-party libraries, so you just add it to the classpath and you're good to go.
Although the code is compatible with Java 1.5.0 or later, it should be relatively simple to port the code to an older version, eg. 1.4.2.
BufferedImage image = BMPDecoder.read(new File("input.bmp"));
BMPEncoder.write(image, new File("output.bmp"));
List<BufferedImage> image = ICODecoder.read(new File("input.ico"));
ICOEncoder.write(images, new File("output.ico"));
Browse the API Javadocs online.
Download the latest version at SourceForge.net or from the Github release page.
To my knowledge, there are no patents on either the BMP or ICO formats.